Nigeria: Local Cement Production Receives Boost - Lafarge Wapco Cement Company, one of Nigeria's leading cement manufacturers, is currently building an ultra modern plant at Ewekoro, Ogun State, as part of its expansion initiative to boost both its production capacity and the country's output. [AA Construction]

Tanzania: Dar Court Set to Have Facelift - Over Sh 500 million will be used to renovate the Kisutu Resident Magistrate's Court in Dar es Salaam, which will be temporary shifted from its place to pave the way to the reconstruction. The work that will take seven months will include reconstruction of the whole building by increasing rooms for magistrates, rehabilitation of water as well as computer systems. [AA Construction]

Affordable Homes in Tribal Communities - An alliance of green designers, architects, affordable housing specialists and sustainability advocates is teaming up with Native American communities in the southwest to develop green housing best practices for homes on tribal lands.
An initiative of Enterprise, the Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative is a multi-year effort aimed at creating culturally appropriate green building standards that will support tribal leaders with self determination goals related to natural resource management, energy conservation and healthy homes.read more [Architecture for Humanity]

Holocaust & Genocide Centre Set To Become A Joburg Landmark

Johannesburg is the latest South African city to develop a Holocaust and Genocide Centre. It was conceptualised as a place of remembrance, learning and contemplation of the history of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide.

A Home in the World of Architecture - The Architects Collective Student Union - The world of Architecture is one with many faces. As students we tend to focus on the romantic side of things; we aim towards the dream of the successful self-owned firm, peopled with like-minded architects all with the goal of creating the perfect building. We exist in a dream where the ideal is reality and so set out to conquer the world, one blockbuster building at a time. This dream is what keeps us going through the nights of caffeine and paper cuts, and the days of harsh crits and slow renderings.read more [The Collective]

AZA2010 is a platform for interdisciplinary discussions about the culture of our cities, post-event cities, the architecture for sustainable communities and our shared urban futures.

Mbombela - From Monday to Friday next week, all South Africans can spend a day at one of the country's national parks without paying an entry fee as part of the Know Your National Parks campaign.

South African National Parks (SANParks) will allow locals with valid South African identity documents to enter any park managed by it completely free of charge, with the exception of Boulders in the Table Mountain National Park, and Tankwa Karoo and Namaqua national parks.

According to SANParks' general manager of media relations, Reynold Thakhuli, the campaign's objective is to cultivate a culture of pride in all South Africans with regards to the country's natural, cultural and historical heritage.

"The idea of a national parks focus week was conceived in 2006, after we realised that a vast majority of South Africans was not accessing the national parks.

"SANParks then embarked on this campaign to encourage all South Africans, especially those from the communities around the parks, to share in what we envision to be the pride and joy of all South Africans and the world," said Thakuli.

Cape Town - Despite spending R2.4 billion more on Research and Development than last year, South Africa is still failing to meet the government's target of spending 1 percent of GDP on R&D.

Presenting the department's National Survey of Research and Experimental Development report for 2008/2009, Minister of Science and Technology Naledi Pandor revealed that the country's R&D spend dropped slightly from 0.93 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 0.92 percent.

This was despite R&D expenditure having increased 2.2 percent in real terms between 2007 and 2008 - from R18.6 billion to R21 billion.

Pandor said despite the country's R&D spend having grown five fold in 11 years - from about R4 billion to R21 billion - more had to be done to meet the one percent target.

The country's spend on R&D has increased from 0.6 percent in 1997, touching a high of 0.95 percent in 2006.

She said comparisons with developing countries such as India, China and Russia indicated that South Africa's share of global R&D had grown from a relatively low base and that its R&D investment matched its relative economic size.